How <i>Should</i> the US Approach China?

With the U.S. already turning its attention to the next presidential election, the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the Obama administration’s foreign policy strategy is up for debate. Given that Obama’s signature foreign policy initiative is the “pivot” or “rebalance to Asia” – and that U.S. Asia policy inevitably centers on the China question – we’re seeing a spate of analysis on how the U.S. should handle an increasingly confident and active China.

Robert Blackwill of the Council on Foreign Relations and Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace got a head start on the debate with their recent report, “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China.” They point out that “the United States has consistently pursued a grand strategy focused on acquiring and maintaining preeminent power over various rivals.” However, Blackwill and Tellis argue that the U.S. has not adequately implemented this strategy vis-à-vis China, instead opting to encourage greater Chinese participation in existing international institutions.

This approach is often called the “responsible stakeholder” model, after Bush administration Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick’s explanation. “[I]t is time to take our policy beyond opening doors to China’s membership into the international system: We need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder in that system,” Zoellick argued in 2005. In essence, the “responsible stakeholder” model seeks greater Chinese participation in international organizations with the end goal of enmeshing China within current rules, so that Beijing benefits more from propping up the system than from tearing it down.

Blackwill and Tellis, however, argue that this strategy has failed. “[T]he American effort to ‘integrate’ China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia – and could eventually result in a consequential challenge to American power globally,” they write. So it’s time for a new strategy – one “that centers on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy.”

Blackwill and Tellis claim that they are not arguing for containment, nor for an absolute end to the “prevailing policy of integration.” But they clearly see China as a threat that must be confronted head-on. “China’s rise thus far has already bred geopolitical, military, economic, and ideological challenges to U.S. power, U.S. allies, and the U.S.-dominated international order. Its continued, even if uneven, success in the future would further undermine U.S. national interests,” they write. Thus the U.S. should stop enabling China’s “success” in favor of maintaining Washington’s own “global preeminence.”

Despite their grand language, however, Blackwill and Tellis’ “new” strategy is different only in degree, not actual strategy. Consider their five major recommendations for Washington policymakers:

[R]evitalizing the U.S. economy…; creating new preferential trading arrangements among U.S. friends and allies to increase their mutual gains through instruments that consciously exclude China; recreating a technology-control regime involving U.S. allies that prevents China from acquiring military and strategic capabilities…; concertedly building up the power-political capacities of U.S. friends and allies on China’s periphery; and improving the capability of U.S. military forces to effectively project power along the Asian rimlands despite any Chinese opposition…

This strategy sounds very much like what the Obama administration is already trying to do with its “rebalance to Asia.” Strengthening the U.S. economy is a vital goal of any president – regardless of his or her China policy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) fits the bill of a “new preferential trading agreement … that consciously excludes China.” The U.S. already has in place restrictions on the export of high-tech products to China (much to Beijing’s annoyance). The Obama administration has been particularly active in building up allies and possible partners in the region, through arms sales as well as joint military exercises.  Finally, a new basing agreement with Australia, a new Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the Philippines, and soon-to-be revised defense guidelines for the U.S.-Japan alliance will significantly improve the U.S. ability to project power in Asia.

Blackwill and Tellis are not alone in feeling the U.S. needs to do more to defend its military, political, and economic influence in Asia. Their central claim – that engagement with China did not achieve U.S. ends – was also made by Michael Pillsbury in his controversial book The Hundred-Year Marathon. Pillsbury called the “responsible stakeholder” approach to China “the most systematic, significant and dangerous failure in American history.”

However, the recommendations laid out in the new report sound an awful lot like the “rebalance to Asia” on steroids. If the “rebalance” has been unsuccessful thus far in achieving American ends, as Blackwill and Tellis try to argue, perhaps the answer is not ‘more rebalancing’ but a strategy that is actually new.

What would a truly new strategy look like? For starters, American policymakers could seriously consider the possibility that what Blackwill and Tellis call U.S. “global preeminence” is inherently finite. Blackwill and Tellis do not even raise this central question about the feasibility of extending U.S. dominance in Asia in their response to expected criticisms of their report.

To question the feasibility of long-term U.S. dominance in Asia is not necessarily to automatically cede the 21st century to China. Beijing does not seem particularly well equipped for (or keen on) global leadership, although it is indeed actively seeking supremacy in Asia, as Blackwill and Tellis note. But China’s quest for hegemony might not be any more successful than the U.S. quest to maintain its leadership.

Many scholars argue that we are entering a “multipolar world.” As Australian security scholar Hugh White put it in his book The China Choice, a multipolar world implies that Asian countries do not face a stark choice between “U.S. primacy and Chinese hegemony.” And that, White argues, suggests that Asian nations will be equally put off by Chinese attempts to “dominate Asia” and by a U.S. willingness to “escalate rivalry and risk war rather than accommodate China’s aspirations for greater influence.”

A truly new U.S. strategy toward China would recognize the limitations on attempts to push back the expiration date on U.S. dominance. At some point, those efforts will begin to backfire by alienating not only China (which already complains bitterly about containment and Washington’s “Cold War mentality”) but other regional players as well – save for the few who seek to use U.S. military might to back up their own quarrels with China. Building relationships – whether military, economic, or diplomatic – that purposefully seek to exclude China will inherently limit the number of regional countries attracted to these institutions.

Perhaps, instead of seeking to limit China’s ability to integrate into U.S. institutions, the U.S. should try integrating itself into China’s systems – the better to gently guide the agenda, even while profiting economically from Beijing’s trade-heavy blueprint for the region. China has proven adept at benefiting from U.S.-led systems; Washington should try the same trick. The U.S. should consider joining China’s new groupings –particularly economic projects such as the Silk Road -- so that it can siphon off some of the economic and diplomatic benefits of China’s rise.